


Old Friends, New Beginnings

by AraSigyrn, deannawol



Series: Friday Night Firefight - Bad Nights and Big Cities [5]
Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF, Kris Allen (Musician)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 01:51:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraSigyrn/pseuds/AraSigyrn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/deannawol/pseuds/deannawol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After <em>Silver Bullets & Circuitry</em>, Kris catches up with an old friend about how his life's changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Friends, New Beginnings

_07:14:35_  
  
The click of the plug seems unnecessarily loud in the quiet and Kris winces a little. His deck hums reassuringly under his hands as it boots. Kris rubs the sleep from his gritty eyes. He’s not properly awake, still sleepy and stupid. What he really needs is a shower and a vat of coffee but he's skirting the very edges of being late already. His window of opportunity won't wait for him and Kris can’t miss this.  
  
Stupid warm, comfortable boyfriend and his cuddling. All his fault.  
  
Kris smiles into his hands. He can't even think that with a straight face. Leaving Adam drowsy and comfortable in bed had been harder than he’d expected. If he hadn’t promised…well, he’d still be in bed with his boyfriend.  
  
He glances back at the bedroom door, still half-tempted but the log-on prompt is already flashing across his retinas. The bright flash of color startles Kris backwards, chair tipping dangerously far. He resettles his chair, suddenly grateful that Adam’s still in bed. The inner-eye display still freaks him out.  
  
Even after two months, the nanotech upgrades Nakamura had 'suggested' take him by surprise. He still doesn't have anything like Adam's upgrades but the inner-eye display – actually a micro-filament connection between his optic nerves and his plugs — and a few minor cosmetic upgrades like the pulse-proportional tattoo intensity settings hadn't required invasive surgery.  
  
Kris glances at his arm, flexing the muscle to make the glowing pattern shift. The blue dragon and code pattern brightens slowly as his heart rate climbs from sleepy-slow to normal. It’s a cool effect , spoiled by the flashing alert.  
  
Time to get to work. Kris settles back in his chair and logs himself in with a few quick keystrokes. The deck whirrs and his inner-eye display flashes up the green-connection icon. Kris closes his eyes and plunges headlong into the 'Net.  
  
There's one second of utter oblivion as the world vanishes. Then the spiraling patterns of the surrounding networks light up around him. Kris is already moving as the Net display builds itself around him. His ikon is online in nanoseconds and Kris speeds up. He’s faster than light, a zigzagging blur of gold-red code-circuits across his base ikon. He loves the freedom and the speed of a good connection and still-shiny plugs. God bless Nakamura and his upgrades.  
  
They're running fast and clean, cutting through the traffic so fast that even the network monitors don't notice them. Kris laughs just from the joy of it. He's never known a high like data-running; running the edge between the metal and the meat with just his own wits and his basic security suite to keep him ticking. Riding a high speed data stream is the closest to flying that Kris can imagine.  
  
Draghos is already active but running in hidden mode. Kris can just about make his silhouette as a shadow under the pulsing light of New York's Net traffic far below. The security program follows Kris' every move, barely lagging even a picosecond behind. Nox and Virago are coming online in Kris' wake, twin bolts of gold/blue lightning on his heels and Chronos is a half-resolved image, trailing Kris' ikon like a shadow.  
  
A massive data fortress, blocky and dull in the swirl of ever moving data, looms up ahead and Kris rolls out of the stream. He corners sharply and kills his speed, the code-circuit patterns on his ikon going dark. He doesn't think he was followed but paranoia has kept him alive this long and he's not as daring as he used to be.  
  
Comes of having something to lose, he supposes. The suite settle around him, circuits gleaming as they run the highly localized firewall that hides their data-trail from anyone who might be looking. Kris turns his attention to the buttressed firewall protecting the data fortress.  
  
The firewall is deeply encrypted, at least 254 layers thick with the warning pulse of monitoring programs flashing erratically through the dense code.  
  
"Hexamillion encryption," Nox observes.  
  
"Fifteen ICE hooks in the visible wall alone," Virago says as she sweeps the section.  
  
"Monitors are on a randomized, short interval pattern," Chronos adds. "Estimated time to crack-"  
  
"Fifteen minutes," which might as well be fifteen years in the accelerated 'Net environment. Kris smiles and reaches out to tap a block of code. Red light ignites along the arm of his ikon as Kris selects the correct cipher. He raps the code block again and a thin red crack spider-webs out from the point of contact, spreading across the surface. "Fortunately, Tokyo Mutual has a nasty habit of just lifting freeware off the 'Net instead of paying their programmers to do the hard work. The manager in charge of acquiring the code doesn't even search for rare code."  
  
"He just downloads what he wants from Afterware.com?" Virago laughs disbelievingly.  
  
"Well," Kris concentrates, shaping the infinitesimal crack into a pinprick intrusion. "Why would he go elsewhere? We make sure the library on Afterware is as comprehensive as possible and it's not like the corps know DEx run that site."  
  
"True," Nox's reply is distorted by the shift as Kris scales his ikon down and spins the orientation through 145 o to slip through the crack. Inside the fortress, Tokyo Mutual's network unfolds around him like a gigantic chessboard.  
  
Tucked away in the heart of the data cross-streams, courtesy of another piece of purloined code, a tiny pocket chat room opens to the same cipher and Kris slips in with his suite as dimmed shadows behind him.  
  
SYS is already waiting for him, ikon dimly lit in gold and green.  
  
"Hijack, how good to see you," she holds out her hands.  
  
"Good to see you, SYS," Kris smiles as he takes her hands. There's a momentary flicker of golden light as their ikons authenticate the passcode and confirm idents.  
  
"It really is good to see you, Kris," SYS squeezes his hands. "It's been far too long."  
  
"Five years," Kris shakes his head. SYS' security programs fade into the foreground and there's an electric crackle as the two suites interface, transferring data and synchronizing five and a half years worth of backlog. "I'm sorry I didn't get in touch."  
  
"I understand why you didn't," SYS waves aside his apology. "I'm just glad that bastard didn't cripple you. Frankie's filled me in on most of the timeline and the crate of champagne was a big clue."  
  
"You didn't think I was going to let your tenure pass without a present, did you?" Kris grins. "Still, I should have warned you about the _Nebula_ job at least."  
  
"And spoil your big dramatic return?" SYS laughs. "I know you better than that. Taking down the Vortex was pretty cool. Burying _Nebula_ and _Trojan_ was just the icing on the cake of awesome."  
  
"I had help," Kris points out.  
  
"So I hear," SYS's smile is wicked. "Your new boy. Frankie tells me he's a hotty. I want all the gory details."  
  
"Firstly, I am not discussing my sex life with you-"  
  
"Yay, you admit you have a sex life!" SYS claps her hands. "Finally!"  
  
"Secondly," Kris continues, grateful that blushing isn't possible in the 'Net. "We don't have anything like enough time to talk about my relationship in that kind of detail. You're just going to have to wait until we can meet up in meatspace."  
  
"That could be months," SYS pouts, waving a hand at the suites as they disengage. "Academia is a cruel mistress and the earliest I can make it up will be Winter Break."  
  
"It's only a couple of months and then you can meet my 'boy' in person. He's really looking forward to meeting you and we have like, three guest rooms. I have a list of places you have to visit and he's got some shows on around then. You are totally not leaving until you've gone to at least one. You're not allowed to tell him any of the embarrassing stories either," Kris pauses. "At least, you can't tell him any of the ones Frankie hasn't already told him."  
  
"Ah, so _that_ 's why you hacked his dye-mix?" SYS chuckles. "Fuchsia isn't really his color."  
  
"He should just count himself lucky I didn't hack his code-bank," Kris grumbles.  
  
"Oh? What kind of stories are we talking about here?" SYS settles her chin on her hands and bats her eyelashes at him. “Tell me everything.”  
  
Kris groans but SYS has always known how to get him to talk. She prods and pokes until he confesses and it's hard to remember that they haven't spoke online or off in more than half a decade. She's not exactly the same as she was but the ease and banter between them is just as it always was. SYS has been - still is - one of his oldest friends and it’s beyond wonderful to see her safe and happy in her secondary career.  
  
He tells her about the move, about the new _Idolize_ and some of the horror stories he’s picked up bartending. She tells him about her students, the funny crazy things they do and there's a undertone of nostalgia when she talks about the debates on ethical programming. It's hard to imagine that they were ever that young and stupid, all evidence to the contrary. SYS loops the conversation back to Adam every time the conversation threatens to derail until Kris finally stops dodging and lets her ask.  
  
"You're serious about him," SYS says. It's a flat statement. "Tracking spiders on every credit line and false ID and feedback trackers aside."  
  
Kris winces. "That's not what it looks like."  
  
"I know," SYS says as casual as if the idea hadn't even crossed her mind. "You'd never have let him this close if you didn't trust him. Besides, I know your paranoia in all its multi-faceted glory. I know the difference between watching someone who's a threat and watching for threats."  
  
Kris huffs. It's been a long time since he's been that transparent but SYS always did see through him. He shrugs off the momentary prickle of panic. This is SYS. She knows him inside out already. He can trust her. SYS peers at him and Kris ducks his head sheepishly. "I'm still working through the lone wolf dynamic. Force of habit and all that."  
  
"Figured as much," SYS says and somehow manages not to laugh in his face. The fragmented remains of Kris' dignity are grateful for her consideration. "Choppah burnt you _bad_. If this Silverfyre's lasted this long, you're sure he's not the same thing over again. Like I said, you're serious about this guy. That's why I want to meet him."  
  
"You will, I promise."  
  
The suites flash solid as the chat-room fills with alerts and interrupts. SYS looks over her shoulder. "Dammit! Looks like time's up."  
  
"Same time next week?" Kris rises to his feet, his suite synchronizing with a snap.  
  
"It's a date." SYS blows him a kiss before she and her suite disappear in a swirl of pixels. Kris kills the warnings and hits the delete key, riding the wave of released data back out through the crack in the wall. Bulky security programs stomp straight past them. They’re brute-force algorithms; not even rudimentary AI-capability. As long as Kris and the suite don’t match the expected profile for hackers, the security programs will simply ignore them.  
  
“Sloppy, shoddy work,” Nox complains quietly. The suite slip past the army of security programs like water over cobblestones. As soon as they’re clear, Kris sends the release code to reseal the crack behind him. He and his suite are halfway across the interlocking web before the first intrusion alarms start to sound. Less than three nanoseconds after that, they’re disappearing down through the network connection back to his home system.  
  
 _07:21:54_  
  
Kris sits up, cricking his neck as he yawns. The plug retracts smoothly into the socket as he pushes himself upright. He nearly trips over the half-emptied cardboard box beside the desk. He’s not wearing shoes and it fucking hurts. Kris hops on one foot for a second, glaring down at the box. He kicks the box in passing as he heads out to the bathroom. The door isn't fully closed, so he bumps it open with his hip as he pulls off his shirt.  
  
The dragon pattern glows cerulean with swirls of royal blue starting to show as his heart-rate picks up. Adam’s brushing his teeth by the sink, wearing only the old black cotton boxer-briefs he sleeps in. His hair is a mess of spikes and there’s a red crease mark from his pillow still on his cheek. In the dip just under his adam’s apple, there’s a red-blue bruise in the shape of Kris’ mouth and there four thin red lines that fit Kris’ fingers curving down from the small of his back under the waist band of his boxers.  
  
He’s disheveled, wrecked and so fucking beautiful that it makes Kris’ heart hurt. Kris shakes his head a little. SYS was right; he’s head-over-heels for this guy and it’s worth it. Even Adam’s sleepy grunt makes him smile. Kris misses a step as Adam bends to spit into the sink.  
  
"We have got to finish unpacking," he says to Adam's ass. The merc glances up to catch his eye in the mirror, foam still clinging to his lips. "I'm running out of toes to break on those damn boxes."  
  
He tries not to stare; Adam’s not as comfortable with attention when he isn’t wearing Silverfyre’s glamorous mask. Kris steps out of his boxers and into the shower which is really all the distraction he needs. When Adam had suggested they remodel the apartment, the only three things Kris had wanted were a proper bed, a good and reliable data connection and a proper bathroom. Adam had somehow managed to find the only shower in the world bigger and more decadent than the one he'd had back in San D.  
  
Kris spins the dials, more for the tactile feel than anything else, and yawns. There was nothing in SYS's data that needed to be handled today. He's not due in _Idolize_ until the evening shift. He can stay in the shower as long as he wants.  
  
"I'm going to stay in here for like an hour. Then I'm having bacon and coffee for breakfast-" Kris' plans for a lazy day get cut off when a warm hand closes around his hip. Kris drops a hand to thread their fingers together and shivers as Adam nips gently at the edges of his tattoos. The skin just on the edge of the scar tissue is almost painfully sensitive and Kris shudders, head tipping back. Adam's grip on his hip loosens, just for a second.  
  
It’s a reassurance; if Kris moves away, even slightly, Adam will let him go. He won't stop altogether unless Kris pulls away but he won't do anything unless he's sure Kris is okay with it. Even as hard as he is, Adam won’t do anything that Kris isn’t whole-heartedly on board with. He never has and Kris trusts him when he says he never will.  
  
Kris loves him so much that he can barely breathe. He leans back against Adam, reaching back to tangle his fingers in wet black hair. Under Adam's lips the dragon shines brighter and brighter, the blue-green lattice lights up. Kris feels Adam smile against his skin. He tugs Adam close enough to kiss Kris’ answering smile and lets himself go boneless, trusting Adam to hold him up.


End file.
